Recently, in the field of vehicle control, for the purpose of improving fuel economy and reducing exhaust gas, idle stop control for temporarily stopping an engine when a vehicle is parked or waiting for a traffic light and thereafter for restarting the engine when an accelerator pedal is pressed has been widely used as disclosed in PTL 1.
In addition, control for temporarily stopping an engine and restarting it thereafter (hereinafter referred to as traveling idle stop control) while traveling has also been known.
In the known traveling idle stop control, normally, an engine is stopped when a driver presses a brake pedal and the speed of the host vehicle becomes slower than the predetermined speed (low speed) and the engine is restarted when the driver releases the brake pedal.
Note that, PTL 2 discloses control for temporarily stopping an engine when a driving/travel state of a vehicle satisfies a predetermined condition while traveling and restarting the engine with the use of kinetic energy of the vehicle when the condition is no longer satisfied.